July 14: Inside Cardstack This Week
Card Pay, Mobile Wallet & Card Pay Early Access Program
Testnets architecture improvements to support Card Pay users
This week, we have focused on improving the deployed architecture for the various testnets, as well as the Ethereum mainnet and xDAI chain so that we can have a scalable infrastructure to support Card Pay users.
To achieve this goal, we simplified our architecture by relying more on the existing services in the Web3 space rather than running our own instances that need to be managed and scaled. As part of this effort, we have moved away from needing the Gnosis transaction service, an indexing server created by the Gnosis team for the operation of the Card Pay protocol family. Instead, we are using The Graph as a replacement for both the mobile app and web dApp needed for on-chain data and complex queries. We believe that The Graph will be able to support the growing user base in DeFi, and we are glad to be able to leverage that indexing infrastructure as we scale up the number of users.
Usage of The Graph for deployment to other layer 2 chains
The Graph also provides us with greater flexibility to deploy to other layer 2 chains also supported by The Graph, such as Polygon and Avalanche. Previously, we needed a special type of Ethereum compatible node called Open Ethereum to provide data to the Gnosis transaction service by way of a technique called tracing. This is not available on all layer 2 networks (e.g. it is not supported in Geth). Since we no longer have this dependency, we can quickly deploy to other layer 2 chains after our xDAI deployment is complete. We want to achieve this migration before our mainnet release because this shift causes breaking changes in the Card Pay SDK, and we want to ensure perfection before initiating the mainnet audit and deployment.
WIP on bug fixes for the mobile wallet
On the mobile wallet front, we are resolving a set of bugs that were discovered during our internal testings, including one that causes the app to crash if you reopen it after your iPhone auto-locks. For internal testers, there is a workaround where you can extend the auto-lock timeout, but we want to fix the root cause of the bug, a Redux issue that travels a bit deeper into the shared codebase between Card Wallet and Rainbow wallet. We plan to distribute the app to more test users once we are able to resolve this issue.
Card Pay Early Access Program
Lastly, for community members looking to get a spot on the beta testing list, we have prepared an application form/survey that allows us to collect contact information and gauge your experience levels with the technology platforms that you currently use. We want to invite beta testers in batches that cover a wide spectrum of crypto experiences. There is no correct answer to the survey. It is simply designed to help us better understand the user base and to assist us with future feature development and prioritization. Here is the form to sign up for the beta test.
UPDATE: You can now download the Card Wallet app directly; join our Discord to get the download link and test the app with the support of our community.
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